When I'm at banks, stores, checkouts, I often try to read the person's name.....and thank them, using their name, when I'm finished. Sometimes the names aren't familiar......or I don't have enough time to decypher an unfamiliar name.
Today, while in Bangkok Bank, my teller's name struck me as unusual.......so I snapped a photo.......to which I was politely admonished for taking a photo inside a bank. Who'd'a'known?!
Anyway, anyone want to take a stab at this person's name?

The การันต์ gar ran over the final consonant in his name is a give-away (for me). It's a signal that the word may (big MAY) not be a Thai word at all, but more likely an English word.
So take Samarad..............and think "English" word

gboard is a google feature (android) that gives your smartphone keyboard a boost. Extremely accurate glide typing.....or, press the mike key on the keyboard and your spoken message will be typed automatically.......with a high degree of accuracy. Here's the better part: add Thai language to your keyboard and you can do the same things with Thai. You can use it to test your pronunciation. I've tried, on a number of occasions to purposely mispronounce a Thai word (close, but no cigar, as my Thai teacher would say) and the program won't recognize the word. But if you get the pronunciation reasonably close, it will.

If you succumb to the package advertising (in the US) that proclaims an Oreo cookie to have "no transfats" or "zero cholesterol", you might do the same to the Kewpie Sesame Salad Dressing sold at Makro that advertises as:
สูตรใหม่
ไม่ใส่
ผงชูรส
Reason #1032 to learn a little Thai.

There was a time, not so many years ago, when 99.9% of what you read in Thai was Thai. But that's been changing........newer generation replacing Thai words with English. It sometimes makes me wonder what a non-English-speaking, Thai-reading, foreigner would do!
To make matters worse, Thais will decide it's not important to say '7-11', instead, they'll just say "say-when".

This sign is at the 3 way intersection near the airport. As with almost all advertisements for new subdivisions, it's offering something free. In this case, the English word has been shortened:
Any takers?

Thai's like most any language, you learn a base word, then a number of other words that build on the base. So you learn กัน (prevent) and then you have เสื้อกันฝน for raincoat, and แว่นกันแดด for sunglasses, and กันน้ำ and กันยุง for waterproof and mosquito repellent respectively.
46 years ago I learned one of my first ever Thai words. Today I learned a word that builds on that word.
1971 - กัญชา
2017 - กัญชาแมว

Most all languages have difficult-to-pronounce words......words like colonel, rural, Sioux. In Thai, I've found that once you get a handle on the way consonants and vowels go together, it's pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Then there are the exceptions.......like สุวรรณภูมิ for the airport in Bangkok, and the word I learned today for a (royal) crematorium.......เมรุ which is pronounced like เมน. On that subject, the city is building a พระเมรุ in Tungsrimuang that will allow the public to pay its last respects to the departed royalty during funeral ceremonies next month.